View source for Anshelm, Valerius (1475-ca. 1545)

Valerius Anshelm, physician and city chronicler of [[Bern (Switzerland)|Bern]], [[Switzerland|Switzerland]], was born in Rottweil in [[Württemberg (Germany)|Württemberg]] and died at Bern about 1545. He came to Bern in 1504, became a schoolmaster there in 1505, and city physician in 1520. Prosecuted by the government for his Lutheran views, he transferred his residence to Rottweil in 1525, but returned to Bern in 1528, and in 1529 received the commission to write the chronicles of the city "from the Burgundian war to this hour." He carried out his assignment with such skill and conscientious industry that his work is considered an outstanding source for the history of the Reformation period. In it he gives a truthful and benevolent judgment and description of the [[Anabaptism|Anabaptists]]. [[Müller, Ernst (1849-1927)|Müller]] <em>(Berner Täufer) </em>states that Anshelm relates the account of the cruel execution of [[Sattler, Michael (d. 1527)|Michaei Sattler]] in a tone very sympathetic to the Anabaptists, "having himself been a companion in suffering with Sattler while he lay in prison in Rottweil; whether it was Lutheranism he was suspected of, or Anabaptism, he does not say." (Anshelm, V, 185, anno 1527.) Anshelm's chronicles of Bern were published in a new edition by the Historical Society of the canton of Bern in 1884 under the title: <em>Die Berner-Chronik des Valerius Anshelm. </em>Vol. V (1896) covers 1523-1529.
= Bibliography =
Hege, Christian and Christian Neff. ''Mennonitisches Lexikon'', 4 vols. Frankfurt &amp; Weierhof: Hege; Karlsruhe: Schneider, 1913-1967: v. I, 74.
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